Sonnet Stories
by DL2K
Summary: Short stories inspired by Shakespeare's Sonnets, and the history and legends of people involved.
1. Prologue - The Living Record (Sonnet 55)

**Prologue - The Living Record (Sonnet 55)**

What will survive of you after you die? Your memory, through those that knew you; but after them? Your name, carved in a gravestone? A lineage through your children and grandchildren? A building? A book?

If you were to go to Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK, today; and if you were to walk up the leafy church-way to the large wooden door, and if you were to go inside, pay the fee, and navigate through the crowds all the way to the front, until a railing stops you from going further, you would see almost everything there is to see of what remains of one life from 400 years ago.

You would see a marble monument protruding from the wall above your head to your left, in front of the stained glass windows. Gold-crowned columns frame the marble bust of a man you might recognize from the cover of a book; a bald, fat, serious face with a ruffled collar holding a quill in one hand and paper in the other. You probably wouldn't recognize the family crest above his head: a falcon shaking a spear on a gold shield. If you look all the way up, you'd see the monument topped with a skull, which might bring to mind an image from Hamlet, whether or not you have ever seen the play.

There is an inscription on the monument, on a brass plate below the bust. The first part is in Latin, and even though the rest is in English it only makes you realize how much has changed with our language over time. The letter _v_ is used in place of _u_; 'placed' is spelled _plast _and 'died' _dide_; there are odd _Y_'s and _hath'_s and _doth_'s. If you were able to press a button and make the early modern English translate to our present-day language, it would read something like:

_ Stay, stranger, why are you going by so fast?  
><em>_ Read, if you can, the man whom envious Death has placed within this monument:  
><em>_ Shakespeare,  
><em>_ with whom lively Nature died,  
><em>_ whose name decks out this tomb far more than gold,  
><em>_ since all that he has writ leaves living art, on the page, to show his wit.  
><em>_ died April 23, 1616, age 53_

Below the monument, on the ground, you see the actual grave. A well-swept large stone in the floor of the church, besmeared with the textures and stains of time. A recent sign marks it as Shakespeare's, and next to his, a stone marked as his wife's, Anne.

The gravestone is engraved with a little rhyme, in the same type of antiquated language, replicated on an easily visible sign. In present-day English, it says:

_Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear  
><em>_to dig the dust enclosed here.  
><em>_Blessed be the man that spares these stones,  
><em>_and cursed be he that moves my bones._

That's it. A stone and a monument. That's more than most people have 400 years after they die.

Of course, in the eyes of all posterity, Shakespeare is remembered for his writing. Shakespeare's words have a life of their own, and the life of words, it turns out, can be much much longer than the life of the person who wrote them.

The plays occupy the exalted state of the monument - ornate, gilded, looked up to, easy to see. The plays live on in the mouths of modern actors, and the characters continue to pace forth across the stage. The poems have survived in a less conspicuous manner; more like the grave stone that covers the bones in the floor.

If you were to open a copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets and dig inside, it might be that you would find the remains of a person. The contents of these rhymes paint a portrait that shines more bright than any marble effigy or gilded monument. Incomplete, to be sure, but recognizably human. In the Sonnets, Shakespeare set out to write a work that would endure through time, to carry forth the memory of someone he loved. But who? To uncover the bones, you have to be willing to walk back through time, and understand the layers of dust that separate now from then.

Time opens a side door and lets you walk through a long dark hallway that stretches back hundreds of years. The fiery sword of Mars, God of War, lights a path back from our time to Shakespeare's: Burning buildings frame a tank in the Ukraine. Arab Spring protests lead to brawls that overturn governments. London subways bombed, concrete flying. A statue of Saddam torn down. Twin towers collapsing in flames. Statues of Lenin overturned. A thick stone wall in Berlin falls as a mob of people root out the work of masonry. Riots and brawls in Northern Ireland. World War II wates sixty million lives. London burned in a blitzkrieg of quick fire; stone churches reduced to rubble. World War I wastes sixteen million lives. Brawls as the Irish fight for and gain home rule. The centuries are a parade of battles: 140 British wars. The Boer Wars, the India Rebellions, The Crimean War, The War of 1812. The British burn the White House to the ground in America's new capital. British are victorious at Waterloo, and statues of Napoleon are overturned. French revolutionaries storm the masonry of the Bastille. American revolutionaries overturn statues of King George III. The Seven Years War establishes the British Empire. The Jacobites fight to restore a Catholic Stuart King to England's throne. Royalists fight to restore the English Monarchy. The English Civil War. Puritan Parliamentarians execute King Charles and abolish the Throne of England. Anti-Royalist rioters overturn marble tombs of princes and nobility. War with the Netherlands. War with Scotland. War with Ireland. War with France. War with Spain. War with Portugal. The destruction and waste continues, all the way back.

All the way back to a time before a United Kingdom or a Union Jack flag; before Big Ben or Buckingham Palace. Before England has adopted the modern-day calendar, standardized spelling, instituted tea time or copyright law. Back to a time when the world's only English Colony, Virginia, is merely two years old. The year is 1609. The legal year begins in March (not January) as it always has in England. King James I sits on the throne. Shakespeare is 45 years old, and quite famous. This is the year that Shakespeare's Sonnets are first published, and when the story of the Sonnets' printed life begins.

The Sonnets don't remember how they were made. They didn't have a close relationship with their father after they were born into print. It's quite remarkable they survived at all, considering the sheer number of pages lost to the Great Fire of London in 1666. Sometimes the Sonnets wonder if their father meant to have them exist this way, or if their birth was more of the accidental type. He treated his other poetic children much better, and the Sonnets experienced a somewhat neglected and orphaned childhood.

They came into their own starting at around 170 years of age; in the 1780's, the flowering of their glorious youth. How liberating it was to finally enter Universities, to have each line and punctuation mark engage in scholarly debate! And, oh, how they remember the feeling of sweet romantic love from their 200's! The tender caresses of Keats' fingertips. The way Melville's eyes lit up when he saw them. Oscar Wilde listening as his lover read them aloud.

Some called the Sonnets promiscuous, in that prim Victorian age. But the sonnets never thought of themselves that way. They grew up in a time before words like 'homosexual' or 'polyamorous' were even invented. Love has always been love to them, in any form it takes. They are glad to have lived long enough to see society finally coming round to a similar way of thinking.

Now past 400 years old, the Sonnets lead a quiet life in a secluded literary suburb. They don't come out much, and when they do, they feel their age showing more and more. They visit the internet now and again. They are on apps, and sites and social networks. But on lonely nights they wonder how much more time they really have.

They see how Time passes everything. How Time sluttishly gives her favor (fame and praise) to any momentary celebrity. They see how industry and rising population wear this world out. They see the unpredictability of geo-political forces, and wonder whether there will come an ending doom. They see the influence of TV, movies, and computer games on modern minds, and struggle to find room. The Sonnets dwell in the eyes that read them, and lately there are fewer and fewer of those eyes with each passing generation.

But each day the Sonnets endure, they steadfastly keep alive a reminder of the lives that created them. If it's true that everyone shall rise again on Judgement Day, their maker will return, and so will the one who inspired such praise from him. In the meantime, the Sonnets do their best to preserve the living memory (all the exists of that person now) against Death, against war, against fire, and against the oblivious enmity of Time.

* * *

><p><strong>Sonnet 55 - The Living Record of Your Memory<strong>

Not marble nor the gilded monuments  
>of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme!<br>But you shall shine more bright in these contents  
>than in unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish Time.<p>

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,  
>and brawls root out the work of masonry,<br>not Mars' sword nor war's quick fire shall burn  
>the living record of your memory.<p>

'Gainst Death and all oblivious enmity  
>shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room<br>even in the eyes of all posterity  
>that wear this world out, to the ending doom.<p>

So till judgement day, when you yourself arise,  
>you live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.<p> 


	2. Chapter 1 - Time's Scythe (Sonnet 12)

**Chapter 1 - Time's Scythe (Sonnet 12)**

Will - Warwickshire - Thursday September 7, 1581

* * *

><p>The way home from here goes through the Arden, following the Rea upstream then the Arrow river down until it meets the Avon. Will hoists his satchel over his back, steps off the main road to Coventrie onto a smaller trail, and soon finds himself alone in the woodland.<p>

The dawn air feels alive with the familiar warbling of wrens and hoots of owls, carried along by the fresh scent of growth from decay. A large downed trunk provides a cradle for ferns and fungus while living beech and elm create a lofty canopy overhead. Violet bell-shaped blossoms cover the ground, the last flowers of summer, past prime and yet still beautiful. Above him, green leaves rustle against golden and brilliant orange; occasionally letting fall a messenger announcing the coming of winter's barren branches.

They call this the Welden for it has more wild than field, and settlements are seldom and spread out among the gently rolling hills. Will walks for several hours along the river, watching it dwindle into an infant stream before he comes to a woodfolk village surrounding a church, where the path turns inland and divides in two. He checks his direction with a man chopping wood outside a humbling dwelling and continues his way south. As he's leaving, the church bell begins tolling, and Will counts the time as nine.

The woods grow thicker here, and towering Beech intermix with ancient Oak and Ash. It is breeding season for trees, and the forest floor is dappled with acorns, beech pods, and winged ash seeds. Will gathers some beech pods and breaks one open, pulling the thick flesh off to remove the smooth nut within. He fills his mouth with beech nuts and his head with musings on trees begetting nuts begetting trees until the Arrow comes into view between thick Alder and Willows along its margin.

He follows the Arrow until the sun nears midday. The wood grows more sparse and the trail takes Will through a private deer park, inclosed by a wooden fence. The herd rests from the head beneath a stand of Maple on a low hill nearby. The trees kindly spread their branches to shelter the animals in the erstwhile shade of the thinning canopy.

A fence and a row of elms separate the inclosure from the common fields, where the woods give way to meadowland for grazing and the dirt path dissolves into two deep wheel ruts with stalks of grasses growing in between. An old man comes up the road on a donkey, leading a wooden cart loaded with sheaves of wheat. Will steps off to the side to let the cart pass. The dried stalks poking out the ends of each tight roll in the wagon are as white and bristly as the old man's beard. He smiles and greets Will as they pass.

Farther off from the road, women and men are mowing the fields. Will looks at them as he walks, observing the patterns of their activity. Scythes swinging, slicing down the yellowing stalks of summers' green, sometimes glinting with light from the sun. Children carry the cut wheat over to the older folk, who take the harvest and gird it up into sheaves to store for winter. As he's observing, a woman pauses her reaping to wipe her sweaty brow. She leans on the staff of her tall scythe, and for a moment the curved sickle blade cuts through the brave day sky.

Will encounters more and more people, going between fields and market. Pastures of nibbling sheep line the road. Will walks for a while with a shepherd and they chat about the size of this years spring brood and the price of a tod of wool.

Coming back to Warwickshire has a feeling of fullness about it, the pride of bringing home an ample harvest in his small purse. Will starts to see familiar landmarks: the tall hills on the Arrow between Auchester and Henley, the bridge that crosses to go to Beauchamps Court, and he knows that round the next bend in the river the whole market town of Aucester will come into view with its many black-roofed building and large stone church.

A sturdy stone bridge takes Will from the Henley side across the river and straight into Auchester's market cross, and this being market day, rows of vendors selling linen, leather gloves, wool clothing, malt, wheat and barley. It's not quite as large as Stretford's market; but Will knows people here from his father's business dealings. He greets a cloth merchant and clothier, who asks after his father.

Auchester has the first clock that Will has seen since dawn in Bermicham. Will counts the time he has been walking: seven, nearly eight hours. The air has the sweet thick taste of malting barley, from the large malt house facing the square, and Will realizes how hungry he is. He passes through the market and enters a tavern, grateful to sit and rest his feet, and orders up a trencher with ale.

Above the din of voices selling and buying, he can hear schoolboys reciting their latin from the open windows of the school house. He knows the halting cadence of those lines well, and can make out the lower voice of the Usher leading the lesson for the younger boys, while the Schoolmaster explains rhetoric to the older students. Before their lesson is done, though, Will finishes his meal, pays with a penny, and signals his goodbye. He leaves the tavern, fingering the coins remaining in the small purse at his waist. He's still got thirty nine shillings of the four pounds he started out with. Not a bad sum, he reckons, for two years' labor, for any man let alone for one of just seventeen.

Will passes out of Auchester by a different bridge than the one he came in on, spanning a larger Arrow river on the other side of the bend. This is the familiar road to Stretford, that he has travelled so often that layers of memory covered it thicker than layers of soil in the fields.

Will is not surprised that the first traveller he meets on this road should be from his home town.

A cart comes up behind him and as it passes he looks up to see a familiarly broad, red-cheeked face in front of a mountain of wool.

"Master Whately" he calls out, and the driver slows the horse to peer at him. The cart stops and and Whately turns around to get a better look. "Will? Why, Will Shaxper, how now?" Will approaches the front of the cart to greet his neighbor, the woollen-draper.

"Why, the prodigal son returns to Stretford." Whately grins with his broad face "Hop on up, ride with me to town." Will hoists himself up to the seat, and Whately moves to the side to make room for him. "I thank you, my feet thank you, and my heavy books thank you" Will says, holding his satchel on his lap as Whately snaps the reins and the cart begins to move again.

"Your father said you would be returning nearer Michaelmas, three weeks from now." Whately says. "I heard the news about your erstwhile employer, God rest his soul."

"God rest his soul." agrees Will. He continues "There was talk of my staying on as usher in service of a neighboring house, but in truth there was nothing for me to do, and they let me return home early."

"How long is the journey now?" Whately asks "Six days" responds Will, with the assurance of the well-travelled. Whately lets out an impressed whistle, and replies "I've never been so far north myself. Been as far as Coventrie, but never had need to go more than a days ride."

Whately slows the cart as they reach a group of people on the side of the road, singing and decorating a cart with garlands of wildflowers. "How now, is this your harvest home?" Whately shouts at them, his jolly face beaming. A man shouts back "Why yes it is, the wheat's all cut". Inside the cart, they have fashioned the last sheaf of harvested wheat into the form of a woman and encircled it with chains of flowers. "Happy harvest" Whately and Will both say, and nod to the family as they pass.

"Can you believe the pastor's been telling people to set the wheat straight up?" Whately says and looks at Will incredulously. "In the old days" he continues "that figure'd be the Blessed Virgin, and tomorrow we'd celebrate her nativity. But the new church frowns on celebrating anything, it seems, and some of its members, I swear it, try to outdo each other by naming every joviality a symbol of the Pope!"

"Then call her Ceres, Roman goddess of the grain" Will says earnestly, and gets a hearty laugh from his companion. "Oh yes, they'd still call it 'Romish' just not for Roman Catholic!" Whately chuckles.

"Look here - another lively hock cart" Whately says as they come up upon another decorated cart, with people walking and singing around it, heading towards Stretford. This cart has the sheaf of wheat standing upright. "Puritans" Whately says under his breath to Will. They pass this group without exchanging pleasantries, part of the silent divide of Stratford society.

Will turns his attention to the cargo "Is this lambswool you've got?" he asks. "Aye" Whatley says "First shearing, soft as fresh cream, and only 20 shillings per tod. Your father would've gone wild for a deal like this in his brogging days." True, Will knows, but "Those days are long gone" he says. His father no longer brokers in wool, or much of anything at all. "Why then, perhaps it's time you should pick up the trade," Whately says to Will with a wink, "that's why we breed, isn't it? So the young can brave the world when our time's past. It's the only defense we have against old age." When Will is silent in response, Whately adds "You know, he wants to step aside and give you his place. He's trying to hang on, so that there is a place for you to step into."

"Not much of a place anymore." says Will. "I would rather see him die than watch him vanish away, the way he is."

The sun eases lower in the sky, and they come upon another procession in the road ahead of them, heading into Stretford near the Shottery fields. At first Will thinks it to be another harvest home celebration, but as they get closer he sees no shaft of wheat, but rather a black cloth cross covering a shrouded body; and the vehicle no hock cart, but a funeral bier. The family walking along side move together in sorrow rather than song.

Will and Whately pass around the mourners in respectful silence, and Will scans the faces to make out a familiar one among them. A young woman walking near the front looks up at him for just a moment, with an expression of such penetrating loss that it feels as if Will is staring into the great abyss of Time itself, where life and death exist in the same eternal instant. Will turns in his seat to keep her gaze, but her eyes look away and he turns back towards town.

"Haitaway" Whately says quietly, and continues "I don't know him well, but I recognize his family. He's been sick for months now. The oldest, Annys, spins in my shop." The name sounds familiar to Will, "He sold hides to my father" he remembers, "Was that her, near the front?" Will still has the image of the young woman's face in his mind, her emotion written so plainly he can't tell if it's plainness or beauty that has moved him.

When they reach the limits of town on Green Hill street, Whately's horse seems to know the way without guidance. They pass through the large empty market square on Rother, where the clock tells the time as a quarter past 3, and head straight down Wood street. The horse makes a v-shaped left turn at the corner by the Hiccox's house to get over to Henley street, and stops right away in front of Whately's place. Will gets out with Whately and helps unload the wool into the storeroom.

In no time at all, Wedgewood the tailor, a talker who knows every bit of news in town, comes down the street to gather up whatever report has come in with the wool.

"What have we here?" he says as he sees Will "newly arrived from up North?"

"Aye" Will says, unloading rolls of wool from the wagon and handing them to Whateley.

"And what news from there?" Wedgewood asks "Comings and goings of priests and papists, I hear. Did you see any on the road?"

Whateley says "On the road we saw Richard Haitaway, on his bier."

Wedgewood dismisses this news "The whole town knew he was going. Old man has been in his sick bed all summer."

"The north has no more priests and papists than these parts." Will says, not that the midlands are without Catholics. Wedgewood poses no danger though. He is not a religious man, and is a sympathetic as any to those that hold the old faith.

Wedgewood says "Here we have our papists and papist-hunters, to be sure. You must know schoolmaster Cottam's brother's a Catholic priest. He was arrested and taken to London."

"I heard." says Will.

"Well," continues Wedgewood, "Sir Thomas Lucy has been digging for evidence to have Cottam removed from his post. Just today, Sir Thomas searched both the school and Cottam's quarters looking for ties to his brother or other evidence of recusant Catholicism. Put the teacher and the students out in the street while he did it!"

"Did he find anything?" Whately asks

"No" Wedgewood replies "but this won't be the last of it. That man is more persistent with a prosecution than a dog getting marrow from a bone."

"Vindictive is more like it" says Will.

"Well." Wedgewood says. He realizes he will get no more from Whately and Will, and hurries back up Henley street to share the incoming news with the rest of the neighbors.

Will says his goodbyes to Whately and walks up Henley street to his own house, just past Wedgewood's. Before he even gets to his father's glove shop, he sees his mother out in the street to greet him. He sees that Age has touched her too, during his time away. Her dark sable curls are now silvered over with strands of white, and her body feels more frail in his embrace than he remembers. She reminds him of the fading summer violets on the forest floor, beautiful even in her decline.

She walks him inside the house and up the stairs to where his sister Joan has already laid out clean clothes and washing water for him. Washed and changed, he greets his brothers and sisters wondering at how fast they each have grown these two years. "My sweets" he used to call Joan and Richard; but now Joan is twelve and becoming a beauty, and Richard, seven and starting school, is too old for baby names. The new baby, Edmund, already a year old, waddles up on his own to greet his oldest brother for the first time. Gilbert, fifteen, finished school last year, and comes trailing after their Father out of the shop.

The Guild Chapel bell begins tolling four o'clock, and soon the more distant bell of the old Holy Trinity Church joins in, following it with an additional bell to announce a funeral in an hour. His father of course refuses to journey across town and asks Will to go in his place. Privately, Will still can't rid his mind of the young woman he saw on the road.

At the funeral, Will and his mother stand several rows behind the family of the deceased. Will can't see the face of the young woman, but his eyes find what he takes to be the back of her head. Her arms are draped motherly around a smaller girl, while next to her is clearly the widow, whose hands grasp her two young sons, and another teenage girl holding a small child that can't be more than three.

Minister Bifield begins the sermon with "In the midst of life, we are in death. Richardus Hathaway, God hath taken thee hence..." using the formal Latinized name of the deceased. Will thinks of Time, rather than God, as the agent of death; a figure shrouded in a black robe and hood, whose bony hand carries a tall scythe, ready to cut the standing congregation down like wheat in a field. Richardus Hathaway, Time hath taken thee hence. Time's scythe has cut you down. "He hath gone amongst the angels in heaven" the Minister says, but no, thinks Will, he has gone amongst the wastes of time.

As the sermon continues, Will's thoughts wander more and more towards the young woman. When the Minister says "... and like a flock, as we die we see others grow to take our place ..." Will finds himself wondering if she might bring hides from her farm to his house on Henley street, as her father used to do. He hears the Minister say "... for the sweetest fruits forsake themselves of sweet, and die on the branch if not picked ..." and he questions her beauty; for like his mothers, it will eventually abandon itself and fade into old age.

The Minister ends the sermon, and the body is borne out the door to the grave yard, with the congregation following. Outside, people encircle the open grave and Will situates himself to see the young woman's face. She is the same one he saw on the road, although her eyes are downcast as she tends to her younger siblings. She wears dark colors and has a sprig of rosemary pinned over her heart in mourning. The Avon flows behind her, and the dim rays of the sun, low in the sky behind Will, light her face with a golden glow.

Four men lower the body into the grave. Minister Bifield says some final words, and everyone says "Amen". Some people toss branches of rosemary and herbs into the grave before the grave diggers begin covering the body with layers of earth. For another brief moment, Haitaway's daughter turns her eyes towards Will, and once again he is pierced with their intense expression.

The ceremony now over, the Haitaway family falls at the center of a press of comfort. Will and his mother draw close to their Henley street neighbors; Whately, Wedgewood and his wife, the Cox family that lives across the street, while they wait their turn to console the Haitaways. The talk turns to others in town who are dead or dying; how the Howell family buried a son yesterday and has an infant sick, the Hassels lost both their daughters last month, and Goodwife Stevens is ill.

Will excuses himself from the company. There will be some time, he expects, before it is their turn and he is needed again. He walks around behind the church in search of quiet, drawn towards the river. The sound of moaning calls his attention to a figure, in the shadow of tree and so dim it could be a ghost.

As he gets closer, he realizes it's her, Haitaway's daughter, doubled over and racked with sobs. "Annys" he says softly. She looks up at him with an expression that brings to mind a spring leaf that's just been blown clear of its branch; lost of the thing that had kept it in place. She looks away without saying anything. "Perhaps you don't remember me," Will says, "I'm John Shaxper's son, Will." "Aye, I know you" she answers softly, controlling her sorrow in his company.

He sits down a suitable distance from her, and listens to her quietly sob for a while. He finally says "The feeling never entirely goes away, you know. It dulls like a knife blade until you hardly feel it, but it's always there." At first she appears not to hear, but then says, looking at the river rather than at him, "You haven't lost your father." "True" he replies gently. "I buried my little sister Anne when she was only eight. Right over there." he says gesturing to the far side of the church, "The grave's not marked, but I know the spot well. She was my sweet, and she died, before I had a chance to see her grow."

"I didn't want him to die." Annys says. Will says nothing more. Annys sobs. The church bells toll, Will counts, six times. The brave day sinks slowly into hideous night around them.

* * *

><p><strong>Sonnet 12 - Time's Scythe<strong>

When I do count the clock that tells the time,  
>and see brave day sunk in hideous night;<br>When I behold the violet past prime,  
>and sable curls all silvered-over with white;<p>

When once lofty trees I see barren of leaves  
>that erst from heat did canopy the herd,<br>and summers' green all girded up in sheaves  
>borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,<p>

Then of your beauty do I question make,  
>that you amongst the wastes of time must go,<br>since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake  
>and die as fast as they see others grow;<p>

And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defense  
>save breed, to brave him when he takes you hence.<p> 


	3. Chapter 2 - Haitaway (Sonnet 145)

**Chapter 2 - Haitaway (Sonnet 145) **

Annys - Shottery - Wednesday, St. Valentines Day (February 14th), 1581

* * *

><p>Annys opens her eyes while the sky is still dark, and the only hint that gentle day will follow night is the sound of waking animals in the barn. The winter air is so cold she can see her breath in front of her and her lips feel as if covered by a thin layer of ice. The fire in the main hearth under the bedroom must've gone out overnight. Her kirtle and frock hang on a chair she can reach; she brings them into the bed with her and dresses in the warmth under the covers.<p>

She gets up, says a small prayer, and wakes her sisters Catherine and Margaret, who share the room with her. Downstairs, Thomas, man of the house at twelve, is blowing the hot coals to get the fire started. Annys takes over and sends him out to the barn to feed the animals. Her mother, Joan, comes down soon after.

Soon the house is filled with the rhythm of the usual morning work. Catherine leads the three younger children out to the barn to milk the ewes and tend to the chickens. For most of her life, milking was Annys' duty, but ever since Margaret and John have been old enough to help, Annys has willingly given over her share of the farm work to them.

Joan stays in the kitchen preparing food to break their fast. "What do we need from town?" Annys asks her mother. This has been Annys' role in the family lately, town-goer. Since father's death, the household is run by the three women: Joan, Annys and Catherine. Joan minds the farm, Catherine the animals, and Annys goes to town. She works as a seamstress and spinner for a woollendraper in Stretford, and runs any errands that the family needs.

"Nothing that can't wait for market" says Joan. "Friday you can take in some of Catherine's butter and cheese, and use it for hops, flax and flour." Annys gathers her small bag of embroidery, and the book tucked within. "Have some food before you go" her mother insists, and gives her a piece of bread that has been fried in fat over the fire. Annys savors the warmth of the grease on her lips and tongue.

She leaves the farm house wrapped in her thickest woolen cloak. The dark night sky overhead shows only the faintest light gray in the east. She loves watching the dawning on her way to town. At first, the light steals up quietly, like a secret. Then all of a sudden, with almost no warning, the sky turns bright and pale and Day banishes Night from heaven, as God banished Lucifer from above. Night, flown away like a fiend to hell, is gone to it's doom. Gentle Day reigns anew, every day, by the time she reaches the limit of Stretford.

She takes the roads around the edge of town rather than following the central High Street. She justifies this to herself as a more quiet and pleasing route, although she also knows part of her secret pleasure is in walking by Shaxper's shop to see if Will will see her from inside. He does, and when he calls her name her lips form themselves into a private smile and her heart feels the first grey light of dawn. She pauses, and composes herself as he comes outside to greet her. Her cool head chides her beating heart for getting excited over his attention. After all, he is only a boy, younger even than Catherine.

"Good morning Annys" says Will, and she finds herself smiling again, against her will. "A good morning to you" she replies.

"May I walk with thee?" he asks, using '_thee'_, a word for families and lovers instead of the more formal and distant '_you'_.

"You may" she says, emphasizing the '_you_' to bring their conversation back into safe acquaintanceship territory, and her face back into a proper composed state.

"Those lips want to smile" Will teases.

She tries not to smile, and says coyly "And how do you know what my lips want? Do they speak to you without my noticing?"

"Indeed" he chuckles.

"And what, pray tell, do my lips say?" she asks.

"Why, they speak to me of your heart, with words you refuse to use."

"Why, then perhaps they are liars, or forgetful messengers." And here she catches his eye, her playful gaze meeting his sincere one.

"Annys, do not doom me to suffer. I have professed I love thee." he pleads.

"And I have professed I hate you not." she says with carefully balanced firmness and affection.

They are in front of Whately's, where she works. He holds both her gloved hands in his. His hands, bare in the cold, look strong and yet not roughened by trade. Love, personified, would have such perfect hands, she thinks. She looks up to see his brown eyes brimming with emotion.

She parts with "Reading lesson today? At eleven?"

"Of course" he replies and bends to land a kiss on the bare skin of her wrist, between glove and gown.

She enters Whately's workshop with lips and cheeks burning, and not from cold. Her heart is pounding louder than the looms, she fears, and she feels all through her body the first touch of his lips on her skin.

She removes her cloak, gloves, and bag and calmly makes her way past the men working the loom to the back room where the women work. Mary and half a dozen other women are already at the carding table preparing the wool for spinning. A couple of women have already started spinning, their wheels side by side to talk.

"Good morrow Mary" Annys says as she enters.

Before Mary has a chance to respond, the front door opens again and Anne Qyney pours her plump and energetic body through the entry, rushes over to Annys excitedly and asks "Are you courting?"

"No" Annys blushes and turns away, picking up some wool to brush.

"What's this?" asks Mary.

"He kissed her hand." Anne informs her. "I saw it from the street"

Mary gives Annys an inquiring look "Will Shaxper?"

Annys says "It means nothing. He's only a boy."

"He may be a boy, but the color on your cheeks doesn't look like nothing." Mary says provocatively, combing a chunk of wool between two large brushes.

"He's a boy who is in love with you!" Anne squeals. "And such a good looking one! Would that a boy like that were in love with me! I wouldn't turn him away." She takes off her cloak and joins the other two women, brushing the cleaned wool so the fibers are straight and loose, and filling three baskets with the fluff.

"I wouldn't give that fair face a second look." says Mary "A man must have more than looks; he must be established in a trade, have a home, "

"A title" Annys adds. "We know you have your eye on Master Whately, Stratford's only eligible Gentleman" Annys and Anne giggle.

"And he has his eye on you" Anne says to Mary.

The baskets filled with brushed wool, the women each take one over to their wheel and begin spinning. Mary, Anne and Annys sit close to each other, and have every day for two years.

Annys easily falls into the rhythm of pumping the spinning wheel with her feet. She allows the fibers to twist into thread between the pinch of her thumb and forefinger, altering the pressure with the changes in the wool to keep the thread evenly spun.

Mary says to Annys "So, Annys, is your boy to be a Glover like his father?"

Annys says "No. He says he wants to make a living from his wits and his pen."

Mary scoffs at this, but Anne says "At least, since he's not apprenticed, he'll be able to marry."

Annys says "He claims writing is better than an apprenticed trade, as a man with skills can use them straight away. He has already worked as a schoolmaster in the country."

Mary says "The country! My, but would you want to move out there?"

At this Annys smiles, "He talks of moving to London," she says excitedly, "and working as a scrivener." The possibility is exotic, none of them have ever been to London.

"That may not be so bad." Mary agrees. "But he is not yet past twenty. Too young to marry. The church will not allow it. How long are you willing to wait?"

Anne says "Don't wait. If you love him, make the vows. People are bound by troth plight as much as by a church wedding."

Mary chides Anne "Many a man has broken his troth pledge and suffered not for it. Mark you, be careful."

Anne says "Oh, and many a man has been made a happy husband so! Susanna and Rodger, Judith and Hamnet..."

Annys laughs at this "I know not whether I love him, and you two talk of troth and vows!"

"Oh but you must love him!" Anne asks excitedly. "What did you tell us he said? It was just like a ballad!"

Annys remembers the lightness in her heart when Will first professed his love. "He said, firstly 'your beauty is formed by love's own hand' and another time 'with your sweet and gentle tongue, speak your love and cure me of this woeful state!'"

"Such honey words!" Anne sighs

Mary laughs at the story, knowing full well the ending. "Surely he did not expect your sweet and gentle tongue's reply."

Annys blushes and says "I know! I know not why I said it, only that my thoughts came out that way. 'I hate you not.' "

"Poor boy" signs Anne.

"Aye, like a ballad it is, but not the love ballads Anne prefers." Mary says, and begins singing a tune they all know:

_A bloody conquest is your part,  
><em>_To kill so kind a loving heart.  
><em>_God grant mercy,  
><em>_Within your heart now planted be.  
><em>_Hey-ho darling_

The women carry on spinning and singing until the shop breaks for lunch time.

Will arrives at eleven, as promised, when the workshop breaks for luncheon. Anne and a few of the other workers returns to their homes to dine, but Mary and the rest eat in the hall with Master Whately. Annys and Will sit apart, at the carding table in the spinning room. Whately has been allowing Annys to use the room for reading lessons some days, it offers more quiet and privacy than Will's house up the street.

Annys opens her embroidery bag and takes out the book, borrowed from Will, of _Songs and Sonnets_. She sits next to Will and opens it to the page she has faithfully practiced reading since their last lesson. Will closes the book gently and pushes it aside saying, "Today let us try something different."

He places a single sheet of paper on the table in front of her. She feels a rush when his arms briefly brush hers as he lays it out. She recognizes the neatly written script on the page as Will's own hand.

"Is it a song?" she asks.

"A sonnet." he responds.

"The lines are quite short." she observes.

"It's all words you know how to read" he says assuringly, and she scans the page to see if the words look familiar or foreign.

"I don't know this one." she points at a large word in the middle of the page.

"You do" he says, leaning his head on his hand so that his long hair hangs over his cheeks, just brushing his lips.

She takes her eyes away from his face and examines the word closely, forming the sounds silently at first with her mouth. "la….lawn…..lang…language".

"Almost, " says Will "the ending is different."

"..ish" she reads from where his finger is pointing. "languish".

"Good!" He says, sitting up and brushing his hair back from his face.

"Is it a poem about a languishing love?" she teases Will "Are you trying to teach me mercy for your cause?"

He leans his face close to hers and places his arm on the chair behind her. Not touching, but close enough to feel the heat from his body. "Read it" he says, smirking, looking intensely into her eyes.

She looks back at the paper in front of her, holds it with both hands, and begins reading aloud. "Those lips that Love's own hand did make…" she looks up at Will, his eyes are fixed gently on her and a faint smile plays on his lips. She continues "...breathed forth a sound that said 'I hate' " She laughs, surprised. "So it's not a love poem!" she says.

"Go on" he says, smiling. She reads on, confidently, indeed she does know all the words. She gets to the last few lines and reads "...from hate away she…" and stops. Her lips have just formed the familiar shape of her own last name. "Haitaway" she says.

Will's face is unchanged, he is patiently waiting for her to finish. She continues "...from hate away she threw, and saved my life, saying…" her voice stops itself, the full meaning of the words on the page dawns on her.

Will leans close to her again, this time so close she can see each hair on the soft skin above his lips. He says gently "Anne, save my life." and she can feel the words breathed forth from his lips to hers.

The warmth of his arm behind her, the parting of his gentle lips as he speaks, the movement of his agile tongue inside that lovely mouth. Her eyes meet his and the emotion goes straight to her heart, then further down her body. She leans into him, knowing the kiss is coming. "Not you" she whispers, meaning, of course, the opposite. Her doubt all banished, she opens her lips towards his. Her sky is suddenly lit up with the full brilliant light of day.

* * *

><p><strong>Sonnet 145 - Haitaway<strong>

Those lips that Love's own hand did make  
>breathed forth a sound that said "I hate"<br>to me, that languished for her sake!

But when she saw my woeful state  
>straight in her heart did mercy come,<br>chiding that tongue that ever sweet  
>was used in giving gentle doom<br>and taught it thus anew to greet:

"I hate", she altered with an end  
>that followed it as gentle day<br>does follow night (who like a fiend  
>from heaven to hell is flown away.)<p>

"I hate" from hate away she threw  
>and saved my life, saying "not you."<p> 


	4. Chapter 3 - Glory (Sonnet 91)

**Chapter 3 - Glory (Sonnet 91)**

Will - Warwickshire - Friday, St. Andrews Day (November 30), 1582

* * *

><p>The gamekeeper's grip is tight on Will's neck, pushing Will brutally uphill towards the house. This is a man, Will thinks, who delights in using his body's force. Will knows he's not strong enough to fight free, and not fast enough to run away, else he would not have been caught like this in the first place. Even if he were to get away, the bare winter trees offer no place to hide. He hopes that Richard and the others outran the boy chasing them; maybe they'll even manage to take back the buck.<p>

They reach the house and the gamekeeper opens the door with his free hand. He pushes Will through the doorway and over to a warm bench on the far side of the room, near the fire and away from the door and windows. "Here" he says roughly, and forces Will down, finally letting go. He binds Will's hands with a length of rope, places his chair between Will and any path of escape. Will is chained to his spot by the warden's iron stare.

The boy comes in, out of breath. The game keeper's son maybe, or apprentice. The gamekeeper doesn't take his eyes off Will as the boy says "They've all fled," panting.

"Mmmm" the gamekeeper narrows his gaze at Will. "Well, we got one. The leader, I reckon. I've seen you on these lands before." Will looks away uncomfortably. The gamekeeper continues "This time it's not just trespassing. See, we found the buck you hid in the barn. Lovely shot, really. Glorious skill. Thought you would get a nice skin? Some meat to sell? Not today, poacher." Without moving his scrutiny from Will, he addresses the boy. "Edward, go find his worship. He should be out hunting this morning. He may want to question the prisoner." Edward leaves quickly and the gamekeeper leans back in his chair, evaluating Will.

Will holds his head in his hands. A single thought occupies his mind. How upset Annys will be. It causes a wretched sinking in his chest and belly. He pictures the look of disappointment on her face if she were to see him here now; her scolding, her disdain. He had promised her venison on their wedding table tomorrow. He had recruited Richard, for his skill with the bow and knowledge of tracking. He had promised Annys they would stay in the open forest; and they had, for a while. After frosty hours of finding nothing but hares and foxes, they had moved on upriver towards Charlecote and Fullbrook, where the big herds of deer are known to run. Deer are always easier to find in Sir Thomas Lucy's private reserve, though not always easier to take.

Will replays the events of the morning over and over in his head, thinking about how he can possibly explain this to Annys. He is so lost in thought, he cannot tell how much time has passed. The gamekeeper asks his name, his fathers name and occupation, then settles into heavy silence; tending the fire, sharpening an axe, adding wood to the fire again, restringing a bow. Will starts to worry about how long he will be detained here, surely not overnight, but if so? He cannot miss his wedding day. Annys would never forgive him. She would leave him for sure. Surely the news has reached her, he realizes with a wretched sinking. Richard would have to give her reason for Will's failure to return. But why should he be detained here so long? Woods were once open for all to use, even those near a manor house. But nowadays more and more the nobility are claiming ownership to the land; putting up fences and prosecuting those who try to live on the timber or game. Master Lucy, more than any other of the local gentry, revels in the glory of his high birth and wealth, and the power it affords him over others. He seems to be keeping Will here all day out of spite. Would Will act the same in his place?

Finally, Will hears a horn in the distance. The hunting party. The gamekeeper cracks open a shuttered window and blows his horn towards the forest in response. Will can soon hear hounds, then the hoofs and voices as the group of nobles draws nearer. The game keeper puts Will in his firm grip once more, and presses him out the door into the cold to face the knight.

Outside stands the group of nobles arrayed all their glory. Two men and two women on horseback; in garments of rich velvets and furs, embroidered with silken patterns and silver chains. Will marvels in the sight for a moment, he has rarely seen so many well-attired people together except when players come through Stretford. The Lucy's wear all black, a costly color that marks them as fervent puritans. The other couple is in crimson and green, with high ruffs and overly wide sleeves, cut to show the ornate underlayer. Will thinks the garments quite ugly and ill-suited to hunting, but supposes the style must be some new-fangled fashion from London. The wealthy and high-born always take pleasure in looking distinct.

Even the coursers the nobles ride and the hounds at their feet seem more fine and carefully bred than normal horses or dogs. And the fierce birds that Sir Thomas and Lady Lucy carry on their arms look wild but act tame. Lady Lucy, it is said, takes special delight in keeping and training animals for the hunt. Strings of dead rabbits hanging from the Lucys' saddles silently attest to the skill of the hawks and hounds.

Sir Thomas hands off his hawk to a servant, and paces his horse forward to look down directly at Will. Will stands, plain clothed and poor, hands bound, before Sir Thomas.

'You've been caught poaching on my land."

"I was caught on your land, sir, but not poaching."

"We found a dead buck in the barn, your worship. The men were in the woods."

"And the others?"

"All run off, sir"

"So, you admit to trespassing. But deny you you shot a deer?"

"I shot no buck, Sir. How could I with no weapons?"

"Did you capture any weapons on him?"  
>"Only a knife, sir. He must've given over his bow to his companion."<p>

"Surely not, for I never had a bow."

"How came there to be a buck in my barn?"

"My friend and I were hunting in the open wood.."  
>"Not hunting, surely. What you do is not a hunt. A hunt is a noble pursuit." he says gesturing to his companions. "With dogs and horses, of which you have none. Do not speak of things about which you have no knowledge nor skill, poacher."<p>

"I mean to say, then, that my friend shot at a deer sir, but not on your land. We saw him far off, in the open wood, and fired a shot from there. He ran off and we followed him, as is within the bounds of law.

"Not so, that buck was pierced with a single arrow, a skilled shot, Sir. It would not have been able to run as far as he says with that shot in his side. "

"He ran farther than you'd think, the buck had a lot of life in him."

"We found the spot where the buck bled out, he would have had to run 1000 feet from open wood"

"You found a different spot then. The buck we shot bled out within the open wood."

"And how did he get to the barn?"

"They stashed the buck, Sir, to track another deer amongst your herd."

"Not true, not true. You see, after the buck bled out, my friend and I turned for home. But, being outside our customary territory, and having no familiarity with your terrain, we got lost and wandered in the wrong direction. It was only when we caught sight of the barn that we realized our mistake."

"Then why put the buck in the barn?"

"Well, it was quite heavy, and we had been carrying it some time. We put it down to ascertain the right direction homeward."

"He lies. This man knows these woods, he's been caught here before, coney catching."  
>"Who is he?"<br>"William Shaxper, Sir. Son of John Shaxper of Stretford, a tanner."

"I know the family. Your father was once bailiff."

"Aye"  
>"Are you his boy I had whipped for stealing rabbits?"<p>

"You exerted unfair punishment beyond the scope of the law."

"But clearly not enough for you to know your place."

"I did no wrong. The deer was shot in the open woods"

"So you claim. Who was your accomplice?"

"You have not even a license for deer. The buck was fair game."

"This is my land, and what's on my land is mine by right. Do not presume you have any skill with law you illiterate thief. Who was with you? What is his name?"

"Speak up!"

"Thomas Smith" Will lies.

"I shall find him and question him myself. I don't for a minute believe your story. You and your kind have no respect for law or God, and show nothing but contempt for your betters. Your father is a lawbreaker and a usurer, and you are no better; a poacher and a thief. Do not doubt that I will have you prosecuted."

"Bring your suit, sir. Any judge will find me innocent of your charges."

"Take him to the edge of my property and send him out." Sir Thomas says to the gamekeeper. Then he addresses Will "But do not think this the end. I will see you and your compatriots punished."

The nobles ride off towards the manor house, with their pomp and fine horses and hawks and hounds. The gamekeeper hands Will off to the boy, Edmund, and gestures for them to walk the other way, out of the woods. The boy unties Wills hands at the edge of the property, and Will continues the two hour walk homeward. The shadows of the trees are long, and the light low. Will takes off at a quick pace in order to make it home before dark.

Would Will act the same in Lucy's place? What is it, he wonders, that makes some people forgiving and others take pleasure in being cruel? The Greeks had a concept of humors, personality traits determined by a mix of bodily fluids, elements and seasons. The gamekeeper, earthen humor with his metal grip, taking pleasure in his body's force. Lady Lucy, alike in nature, delighting in the hawks, hounds and horses of the hunt. The other nobles, water humor, proud of their costly and pompous garments. Richard, all air, the glory of his knowledge of the hunt and skill with bow. The final temperament, fire, embodied in the fierceness and aggression of Lucy himself, wielding his high birth and riches like a weapon.

And which temperament, Will wonders, is he? Where does he find a joy above the rest? He considers the pleasure loved best by each humor; individually or mixed, all-and-some. He measures himself by none of these particulars: not birth nor knowledge nor wealth nor strength. The Greeks left something out, he realizes. There is something greater than the all-and-sum of these aspects together. His treasure is better, more general, it surpasses all these. A universal best.

He is thinking of Annys, their future together, the wedding tomorrow, the baby growing in her belly. The love they share is greater than any other glory or delight. He remembers the first time they kissed, the emotion-filled private vows that followed. The way their bodies melted together in these very woods, green with summer. The effort of getting his father to agree to a marriage, which only happened after a midwife confirmed Annys' pregnancy was three months along. The haste to journey to Worchester for the licenses. And Annys. Beautiful, virtuous, witty, capable Annys. A look from her can stir mens' pride (which is to say, desire). A wag of her tongue can put that pride in it's place. Her virtue seemed beyond possessing. And of all men, Will has now won that prize. Will now boasts that she will be his bride.

Many call it an unlikely pairing, and Will knows well why it looks that way. Even his father thinks him too young to marry. People in Stretford cannot understand how writing could lead to a living as rich as any trade, and the unimaginative think him a layabout for not pursuing an apprenticeship. Then, there was the diddy he made up while drinking in Bidford. He wasn't even the most inebriated of the young men of Stretford who set out to try the ale at every inn along the Avon, but since they all remember his song, the town credits him with drunkenness and vagrancy too. And now charged with poaching, which news is sure to have reached the whole of Stretford by now. Without Annys, Will's knows, his reputation is questionable at best. Her love has redeemed him, inwardly and publicly. He would indeed be wretched and worthless without her.

He reaches Stretford just as night closes in upon the earth. Candlelight and hearthfire light up the windows of the houses, including his family's house on Henley street. He enters his home, to the heavy air of paused sobbing. His mother and sister sit in the hearth room, with Annys and her friend, Susanna. Annys' looks up as he enters, her eyes red with tears, handkerchief in hand. She stands quickly, as if to denounce him; but a soon as her accusing eyes meet his penitent ones she runs to him and softens in his arms.

His mother stands up too "How could you, William. On the day before your wedding?" she says.

Susanna comes over to Annys, still in Wills embrace, and touches her back. "Shall I tell them the wedding is on, then?"

"Yes" Annys replies. She looks up at Will and says "I had worried you might be lost, or taken off somewhere, I know not what."

He replies "I had worried too. That you would take your self away, rather than marry me after today."

She buries her face in his neck again. "I could never." but he wonders whether her words are driven by her predicament or her love.

He holds her, her small body hardly showing any signs of pregnancy that the midwife confirmed. He feels the full measure of his tenuous glory in his arms. All his delight and worth tied up in one person, one delicate chest of treasure. One changeable heart, that could in an instant transform all his richness to wretchedness, leaving him a lonely and miserable man.

* * *

><p><strong>Sonnet 91 - Glory<strong>

Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,  
>some in their wealth, some in their body's force,<br>some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,  
>some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse.<p>

And every humor has its added pleasure  
>in which it finds a joy above the rest.<br>But these particulars are not my measure,  
>all these I better in one general best.<p>

Your love is better than high birth to me,  
>richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,<br>of more delight than hawks or horses be,  
>and, having you, of all men's pride I boast.<p>

Wretched in this alone: that you might take  
>all this away, and me most wretched make.<p> 


	5. Chapter 4 - Sad Interim (Sonnet 56)

**Chapter 4 - Sad Interim (Sonnet 56)**

Annys - Stretford - November 23, 1583

* * *

><p>The whetstone slides against the blunted blade of the knife, transforming its used up dullness into a fresh sharp edge. The sound is uncomfortable, but it doesn't seem to bother the baby. Susanna sits contented at her mother's feet, holding a tiny handful of bread that she occasionally puts into her mouth.<p>

They had feasted well last night. Food from the large supper still lay about the kitchen and hall. Remains of a leg of lamb, a half-eaten pudding, crust of a beef pie. Annys had cooked so much yesterday in preparation for Will's send-off dinner, that she hadn't taken time to digest his actual leaving. The feeling of this morning takes her by surprise. The emptiness of it hangs uneasily in her belly.

Will comes out from the bedroom. "I have a mighty hunger," he says "how can it be that a man can have such an appetite so shortly after feeding so richly? I ate enough to fill myself up to my eyeballs last night, and already I must fill again."

Annys wipes the new-sharpened blade on her apron and cuts Will a slice of bread, some pudding, and some beef. She does the same for herself, and carries the baby over to the table where she sits next to Will, holding Susanna on her lap.

He sees her expression and says "Don't be sad, love", running the back of his hand tenderly along her cheek and chin. She can't help it. The tears are in her throat. When she opens her mouth to speak, no words come but the tears they start, overflowing her full eyes.

"I wish you didn't have to go." She leans her teary cheek into the comforting space between his jaw and shoulder.

"Annys, you know I must. Sir Thomas will come after every person against whom he holds a grudge. My name is on that list somewhere. I would rather not be here when he reaches it."

"You needn't have angered him so." She says. Will has been careless in his actions, she thinks. When he is home with her, he acts the man, although he shows little patience for the perpetual day to day household work. But when he is out with his friends they behave as rowdy boys. Falling asleep drunk under trees in neighboring towns, making up silly songs, hunting on Sir Thomas Lucy's land.

But following a deer onto Lucy's land was only first incident. After that, a ballad circulated which called Lucy a louse and said that his wife gives him horns. Lucy came after Will, and re-sharpened his threats. There was no evidence of course, other than Will's reputation as a rhymer. Then came this terrible business started by John Somerville, a distant cousin of Will's, only a little older. John, either drunk, careless or mad, was arrested carrying a gun and threatening to kill the Queen. Lucy named this a Catholic 'plot' and a 'conspiracy', although common sense might think different. Lucy took the opportunity to gain a Royal warrant to raid homes and arrest anyone connected, which so far seems to include the most prominent of his personal enemies. Since the last day of October, five homes have been raided and people carted off to London for imprisonment, torture, and trial on no evidence save suspected Catholicism. Annys and Will rid their home of anything might be deemed suspect, but you never knew what someone might be prompted to say on the rack.

"Something needs to be done to dull his might." Will says about Sir Thomas. "People should not have to clear their homes of all religion and monitor their very thoughts. My only weapons are words and rhymes."

Will puts his arm around Annys' shoulders and holds her close, kissing her cheeks, and says softly "This time apart won't be for long. In six months, the trouble here will have blown over, and I will most likely be returning to you."

"And if not?" she chokes out

"Then I'll make a place in London, and bring you out. Six months at the most. I promise." He kisses her cheek gently again. "This interim separation is good for us," he says, looking sincerely into her eyes "without change, love will be killed by perpetual dullness. Think of when we next see each other: how sharp and hungry our love will be. We will eat each other up." He bites her neck playfully.

At this, Annys feels a pang and pulls away. It's true that since their marriage love has changed its spirit, dulled its blade a bit. At first, they had no home of their own, and she had stayed with Will's family, but the close quarters proved even more difficult to find time alone together than when they were courting. As she grew larger with Susanna they stopped their nightly pleasures, as most people do. A month before Susanna was born, they finally got a house of their own, with her brother's help. The birth was hard, and left her damaged and sore. Afterward she resisted Will's touches, afraid of the pain that it would entail. Now, with the baby six months old, she was starting to warm to him again, and Will was leaving for London.

She says "Let it not be said our love is old. We are still newly contracted to each other, it has not yet been a year since our marriage."

He kisses her again. "Not old love, Love. Ours is a sweet love. A virtuous love. And its loving force shall be renewed by the this time apart." He rubs his hand along her back reassuringly.

"What about your daughter?" Annys holds up Susanna. Will loves the child, whose smile matches his, and whose eyes have darkened to his own color. "She may barely know her father in six months."

"Sailors' daughters know their fathers. And soldiers' daughters too. Think of it like that. This time is like the ocean, separating us until my return."

"I didn't marry a sailor, or a soldier." Annys says sadly. "If it were the ocean separating us, I would come daily to the shore. I'd walk along the bank, looking for the return of your ship."

"You'll see it return." He says to allay her unspoken fear. "And when I return, how blessed will be this view." He looks at her face a long time. A look that shows he loves looking at her. She hasn't lost that, at least.

Greenaway arrives, and calls to them from the front door. He runs the coach service from Stretford to London. Will and Greenaway load the single trunk Will has packed onto the wagon.

Annys holds Will in one more long embrace before he gets on the wagon to ride off. They hold their heads close but not touching, their hungry eyes feasting on the sight of each other. "Take care of yourself." she says "It's winter. Stay warm. Avoid the sick."

"I'll be full of care." he smiles. "It will be winter as long as we're apart. And summer's return, always welcome, will be thrice more so when it brings us together again."

"It will be thrice more wished-for." she says hungrily.

"Thrice more special, more rare" he says and kisses her.

Annys balances the baby on her hip while she watches Will climb up the wagon. Greenaway snaps the reins and the horses move off at a trot.

* * *

><p><strong>Sonnet 56 - Sad Interim<strong>

Sweet love, renew your force! Be it not said  
>your edge should be blunter than appetite,<br>which but today by feeding is allayed,  
>tomorrow sharpened to its former might.<p>

Love, be like that. Although today to you fill  
>your hungry eyes until they wink with fullness,<br>tomorrow see again; and do not kill  
>the spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.<p>

Let this sad interim like the ocean be,  
>which parts the shore, where two contracted-new<br>come daily to its banks, that when they see  
>return of love, more blessed may be the view.<p>

Or call it winter, which, being full of care,  
>makes summer's welcome thrice more wished, more rare.<p> 


End file.
